


Brute Blood of the Air

by Nighthaunting



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Basically all sex dreams, Confusing God-on-Mortal Spiritual Mpreg, Highly Metaphoric, M/M, Mythic Bestiality, This will never be finished i just found the draft again, dub con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 13:12:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6611896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nighthaunting/pseuds/Nighthaunting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Dragon Age Kink Meme prompt: "The Maker chooses Cullen to be his new earthly bride, and visits him in the fade where he has sex with him in many different mythological forms... tentacles, Dragon, self-cest, etc. Bonus: Cullen becomes pregnant with the Maker's child." </p>
<p>The highly metaphorical sex dreams of one Cullen Rutherford, blessed by the Maker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brute Blood of the Air

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from "Leda and the Swan" by W. B. Yeats.

The first time the Maker comes to him in his dreams he doesn’t notice beyond the nightmare he’s already in. A single moment of _presence_ , a tiny flash of difference in his dream-memory of Kinloch Hold that is enough to jar his sleeping mind away from where he’d been trapped; curled against a wall with the echoes of screams ringing out around him, desperately trying to block out the whispering demons. Cullen wakes up with a scream choked off in his throat and sweat chilling on his skin where he’s thrown the blankets off as a cold wind whistles through the loose flap of the oilcloth secured over the hole in the ceiling. As soon as he’s shaken the sleep from his mind and woken fully, he’s forgotten the dream was any different than his usual nightmares. He lays in bed for a while longer, until the shaking has stilled and he breathes easily, before he pulls himself out of bed to dress and start the day. Dawn will come in a few hours, and there is enough that needs his attention. Cullen forgets.

It goes on like this; slowly and terribly small. Cullen’s nightmares interrupted, until he no longer wakes from them but sleeps on until morning. He hopes it’s a sign of improvement, a sign the withdrawal pains will ease, that his guilt will settle into a bearable weight he can carry along with the demands of being Commander. He doesn’t remember exactly when the nightmares stop and are replaced by something else, because at first his mind is so relieved by the sleep he sinks willingly and gratefully into rest each night. Cullen accepts the gift for what it is, unknowingly. 

The comments start soon enough after he can sleep--dreamlessly, as far as it seems--the night through. Cullen has never been a vain man, and he has never cared much for his own appearance aside from the daily struggle to tame his curls into something less than a bird’s nest, so he’s off-put by how obvious it seems his lack of sleep had been. Cassandra seems pleased, vindicated in her choice to have faith in him, and Cullen’s guilt in his belief he would inevitably fail eases just a touch. The Inquisitor is her usual bright self, telling him at the start of another War Table meeting that he practically seemed to be glowing with good health. Leliana gives him measuring looks that he catches out of the corner of his eye during the whole meeting, but in the end she smiles as well. Cullen draws on his much-diminished faith, after the meeting, to quietly thank the Maker. He doesn’t understand the sudden rush of wind through the garden, or the flood of spring blossoms--so many more than were ever on the trees--that whips around his feet and catches in his hair and clothes. From where he sits by the chess set, Dorian laughs at the sight of Cullen attempting to brush the stray petals out of the folds of his coat. Cullen doesn't notice the way the whole garden seems to blossom more feverishly, or way the light gathers around him in a way the bright afternoon sunlight doesn't entirely provide.

There is an apple sitting on his desk when he gets back to his office, and the scribe who assists him gives him a much smaller stack of letters needing his replies than he’d been anticipating. She comments on his renewed appearance as well, smiling as Cullen hands her the papers he brought with him from the meeting and letting herself out of his office to attend her work. He forgets about the apple until it’s much later, Cullen becoming so absorbed in his papers that  the bell for dinner rings and is ignored. When his concentration is disrupted by his stomach tightening in hunger, Cullen notices the apple again; it’s perfectly ripe and firm, the warm reds and yellows of its skin making it seem golden in the candlelight. He doesn’t put a great deal of thought into how the apple got into his office--probably left by his scribe in anticipation of his forgetfulness, because Nysanne has caught him late in his office and scolded him more than once before--and when he bites into it he has to quickly turn his hand and sit back from the desk to keep the juice from running down his chin onto his papers. It’s the best apple Cullen’s had in recent memory, and the hazy feeling that steals over him as he runs his mouth over the heel of his hand and up his palm to taste the last lingering sweetness of the juice is strange but comforting. He feels better than he has in years; stronger and more purposeful. When he climbs the ladder to his bed he finds the oilcloth covering the hole in the ceiling has come loose again, flapping in a gentle breeze that sweeps through the room and ruffles Cullen’s hair and the fur on his coat. 

That night, he dreams. Cullen’s nightmares were always vivid, his dreams near-lucid when he could remember them, but this dream is more. In his dream he wakes as though he’s been asleep for a long time, slowly becoming aware of the warmth tucked around him and the cool air on his bare skin. He sits up and finds himself nowhere he’s ever seen before; the surface he was laying on was a great stone table covered in soft furs, carved out of a stone outcropping that juts out from the banks of a lake. The water is smooth and glassy, with spring blossoms floating on its surface where it laps gently against the rock, reflecting the light of the candles melting onto the rough stone surrounding the table. Other than the light from the candles it’s almost oppressively dark, the night moonless, and Cullen can barely see beyond the circle of dim illumination the candles provide. He knows this is a dream, that it must be a dream, because he is not alarmed by any of this. Turning his attention on himself he discovers that he’s nude, and wrapped around him is the pelt of a great lion. The lion’s upper jaw is drawn up over his head like a hood, and its mane falls over his shoulders with the rest of the pelt held closed low on his chest by one of his own hands. 

There’s a billow of wind, the scent of flowers and fresh spring rain and smoke nearly cloying, and suddenly Cullen can hear the movement of another person. He wants to turn and look at them, but when he tries to turn he can’t summon the will to move. A voice speaks, and Cullen can see his shadow thrown as a light flares behind him; making the darkness surrounding the table seem darker instead of illuminating anything at all. He can’t understand anything the voice says to him, but he has sudden impressions of fondness and a careful respect and, underneath both of those, lust. The feeling of presence intensifies, and Cullen can suddenly imagine the stranger--a man--climbing onto the table with him, knees pressing into the furs as he leans forward and puts his hands on Cullen’s shoulders. Slowly the stranger draws the lion pelt away from Cullen, leaving him nude and still frozen in place. The lion pelt is tossed absently across a corner of the table, and the stranger moves until his body is pressed flush against Cullen’s back. 

Cullen is startled by how warm the stranger is, skin nearly burning, and finally finds himself able to move as hands start to explore his body. Cullen turns to face the stranger, but the impression he gets of the stranger’s face is indistinct in a way Cullen’s mind can’t fathom. He is the most handsome man Cullen has ever seen, truly, but beyond ‘handsome’ Cullen has no way to describe him. The stranger smiles, and the light surrounding him is a gentle glow. Cullen breathes out, the stranger kisses him, and Cullen falls into the stranger’s arms. A hand tangles in his hair, tousling his wild curls and tilting his face so the stranger can better kiss him. Everything seems to blur, the only constant the stranger’s soft glow, and the feeling Cullen has of being wanted, desperately, and needed, desperately. He finds himself on his back, his body offered up to the stranger. They fit together perfectly, and the stranger kisses him and touches him reverently as he thrusts inside. Through it all Cullen can’t seem to take his eyes away from the stranger’s face, the light surrounding him. He feels, dimly, a sense of recognition. Cullen _knows_ this man, somehow, but before he can try and remember, orgasm whites out his vision, and he finds himself sitting bolt upright in his own bed. The breeze is playing with the loose flap of oilcloth, and the first few rays of morning light stream softly in through the gap. Cullen is startled by how good he feels, how warm. He gets up and tacks the oilcloth back down before dressing and climbing down to his office to begin the day. 

He dreams again the next night. In the dream, he finds himself again on the stone table, wrapped in the lion pelt. The candles are fewer, and the thin sliver of the waxing moon is visible, riding high in the sky and reflecting off the utter tranquility of the lake. Cullen is alone, and notices that where before it was utterly silent, he can now hear the soft shifting of trees rustling in the wind. The scent of flowers and smoke surrounds him, and his throat is parched. On the edge of the table, glinting in the wan moonlight, there is a silver bowl; finely wrought, with low sides surrounding a deep well. Cullen takes the bowl to the edge of the lake and dips it carefully in the water, trying to strain out the floating blossoms. He lifts the bowl to his lips and drinks--the water cool and sweet--but just as he tips the bowl to drain the last of the water into his mouth he sees one small flower bud, unopened and pure white. It slips into his mouth with the flow of water and he swallows it before he can catch it. He feels warmth spreading through his chest and across his body, and dips the bowl again to drink. Cullen eases awake at dawn, and can barely convince himself to rise from bed. 

Days go by and each night Cullen dreams. He thought perhaps the dreams would stop, but when they continue, each night as vivid as the last, he finds himself worried. He tries to convince himself there’s no harm in them, that he’s merely unaccustomed to not having nightmares, but he’s set on edge just the same. When he goes to another meeting with the Inquisitor and she asks in surprise if he’s done anything to his eyes he becomes more suspicious, and when she takes a compact mirror from Josephine and shows him his reflection his eyes--no longer a dark hazel, but a deep golden amber--shine back at him in the mirror. He nearly drops the mirror, and he knows the Inquisitor is suspicious from the look on her face, but Cullen doesn’t have an answer for her. 

The Inquisitor takes in Cullen’s stuttering shock at the change and believes him when he tells her he has no idea how it occurred, and Cullen is glad for it. When she asks him if anything strange has happened he feels foolish and alarmed enough to admit that his usual dreams had been replaced by new ones--although he goes red and rubs at the back of his neck when he tries to explain how, the details of each dream slipping through his fingers like mist whenever he tries to describe them. The Inquisitor is concerned, he can see; Leliana has drawn into herself and is cold and stern and calculating; Cassandra is apprehensive but resolved; Josephine is worried, but blushes mildly herself at how doubtlessly risque Cullen has made his dreams sound. 

Leaving the War Room with the Inquisitor’s promise she would look into the matter and see it resolved, Cullen berates himself for letting his guard down; for accepting the end to his nightmares so gratefully that he hadn’t even thought of some more perilous temptation. Working thorough the rest of the day is exhausting in a way he hadn’t felt for weeks, and impulsively and guiltily he wonders if the change could really have been so bad when it had come with such a feeling of renewal. At dinner that evening the Inquisitor takes him aside and tells him that she’s arranged with Solas to mind his dreams that night, and has conferred--entirely confidentially, she assures him--on his problem with Vivienne and Dorian and other trusted mages. Cullen can only thank her, masking the small itch of hesitation at having his life entirely in the hands of mages--including the Inquisitor herself--that his best efforts at leaving the Order behind still haven’t managed to conquer entirely. The sense of guilt and unworthiness that follows swiftly, combined with the anxiety of his situation, leave him hardly able to touch his food, and he retires early.

Despite his nerves, when Cullen is finally abed he falls asleep swiftly and easily. He dreams. 

This dream is different than the others. Instead of waking to the soft night breeze and the sound of sussurating trees along the shores of the lake, with the moon waxing in the clear sky, Cullen becomes aware in his dream floating high above Skyhold. It is night and the Frostbacks are laid out along the curve of the world, stretching off seemingly endlessly in every direction. The night sky is a perfect dome meeting them at their edges where they fade out of sight, and Cullen feels a chill even as he struggles through the dreamer’s haze in his mind to pick out constellations and study the tiny Skyhold from this great height. He feels breathless, the sigh laid out before him is beautiful as it is unexpected. The presence, when it arrives, is slow and warming--the chill Cullen felt leaving him. It almost seems to be indulging Cullen’s wonder, the impression of how pleased it is that Cullen enjoys this is clear. 

Since the first night of the dreams Cullen has been aware that the stranger and the presence are one and the same; even when he cannot see the stranger, Cullen feels his presence. The stranger has never spoken to him in a way  he can understand, but gives Cullen impressions of his feelings, and since that first night they too have been consistent. Careful respect for Cullen; desire for him; fondness; a dim wonder, not fully realized but slowly growing each night. Now, though, there is something else accompanying those feelings: possessiveness. Feeling it sends a thrill running down Cullen’s spine, and for a moment he worries that he’s done something wrong. The stranger is quick to reassure him, sending feelings of comfort to surround Cullen, but also clarifying the strain of possessiveness underlying his impressions. 

For the first time since the dreams have started the stranger gives Cullen a greater impression of his own desires. Cullen can suddenly see a vision of himself shaped in the stars, holding a child carefully to his chest. In the vision his eyes are the gold of sunlight through amber, and there is the faintest light surrounding him. His hair has grown out and brushes his shoulders in frizzing ringlets he remembers having when he was a young boy, and the baby--a daughter, he suddenly realizes, feeling the breath leave him--reaches up a hand to try grabbing at his curls. 

Looking at the vision, Cullen feels warmth spreading through his chest, hot enough to make his skin prickle, and he shakes. Suddenly there are arms around him, and standing amongst the stars on nothing but air as they are, the stranger draws him to his perfect chest and soothes Cullen’s sudden fears away. Cullen tries to ask how he’ll ever have a daughter, but the words choke in his mouth. The stranger seems to understand, though, and smiles down at him beatifically. For the first time, he speaks so Cullen can understand him, his voice as perfect and yet as indescribable as his face.

“ _Yours. and Mine_ “ he says, “ _Our child”_ with this he runs a hand along Cullen’s side until he can press firmly against Cullen’s lower abdomen, his hand hot enough to burn, “ _Our child is here_.” 

He kisses Cullen then, and Cullen can feel his disbelief--already distant and hazy within the dream--fade with each careful slide of the stranger’s hands along his body. 

“ _You”_ the stranger whispers to him, “ _are mine as well, and I will have it known_.” 

With that the stranger casts an angry glance at a distant patch of stars, one that Cullen can barely make out as being shaped vaguely like a great wolf about to leap. He doesn’t remember these stars from any of the nights he’s spent studying them--woken by nightmares and unable to return to sleep--but then he’s never seen the stars from this angle before, either. The stranger nods at Cullen to look, and the whole sky is suddenly lit as the stars tumble through it.

Standing in the center of a meteor shower is awe-inspiring. Cullen clings to the stranger and his held in return, his amazement feeding the stranger’s projected impression of fondness and wonder-at-Cullen. The whole sky is lit with the tracks of stars burning across them, and the stranger takes Cullen more firmly in his arms and suddenly they’re falling as well: down through the turning wheel of the night, skimming along the peaks of the Frostbacks, until they finally come to Cullen’s tower and burst through the thin oilcloth covering the hole in his ceiling to land on his bed. And then the stranger is kissing him desperately, Cullen arching up into his touch as hands caress his bare skin. The stranger is above him, fierce and gold and the brightest thing Cullen has ever seen. 

The stars are pouring through the holes in Cullen’s ceiling, mantling the stranger’s shoulders and making him nearly unbearable to look at, but Cullen can’t tear his eyes away. He can feel tears gathering and falling down his cheeks and thinks _Maker_ and the stranger’s eyes light brighter still and Cullen screams as he comes suddenly, overwhelmed. The stranger-- _the Maker the Maker the Maker_ , Cullen’s mind is singing--leans over him and kisses him again, laving his tongue over Cullen’s cheeks to catch his tears and taste them. Cullen is boneless in the Maker’s arms, he feels as though he’s on fire, and the Maker kneels between his spread legs, the stars surrounding him drawing over them both like their personal sky. Cullen moans, as desperately as he can feel the Maker wants him, and the Maker nudges Cullen’s legs further apart and lays himself flush against Cullen’s body--they fit together _perfectly_ \--and takes Cullen apart with each thrust and roll of his hips. 

The light surrounding them is intensifying somehow, Cullen can see the stars pouring in through the hole in his ceiling like a wash of gold, surrounding the Maker and being driven into himself with each press of the Maker’s body, until there’s nothing he can do but clutch helplessly at the Maker’s shoulders and tighten his thighs around the Maker’s waist and sob helplessly as he comes again, and then is unmade, utterly, by the depth and intensity of the Maker’s own pleasure, swallowing him up and dragging him into unconsciousness. 

Cullen wakes, and sunlight is pouring through the hole in his ceiling, the ragged remains of the oilcloth he’d tacked up to cover it hanging from its edges. He can barely move, and managing to lever himself onto his elbows he finds himself nude; his inner thighs dusted with gold that’s dried onto his skin with his sweat. 

Down below, he can hear the Inquisitor herself shouting for him and hammering at the locked door to his tower. Distantly, he hears the worry in her voice as she threatens to have the door knocked in, but Cullen’s head is foggy--spinning with the half-remembered dream of the night before, when he’d learned... something that was vitally important--and he manages to pull himself under the sheets and blankets of his bed before passing out again.

The next time Cullen wakes, it’s to the Inquisitor leaning nervously over him. His head is still foggy, and he’s cocooned in his blankets with furs he’s never seen before piled over him. Blearily he looks around to see both Solas and Dorian standing to the side while the Inquisitor presses her hand to his forehead.

When she notices he’s awake, she immediately holds a glass of water to his lips and he swallows it down thankfully. Solas and Dorian crowd closer to the bed as the Inquisitor straightens and sets the glass aside and Cullen knows, distantly, that something is very wrong. 

Cullen knows he has a fever, just like he knows Dorian’s twitching is from worry and the Inquisitor’s frown means she has bad news. He listens as Solas explains his efforts at minding Cullen’s dreams the night before; of being thrown from the Fade just as the meteor shower had started and surmising that although he had sensed no intent to harm Cullen, there was obviously something very powerful taking an interest in him. Cullen drifts somewhat as Solas speaks, but watching his face, Cullen as a sudden feeling that Solas is holding something back from all of them--he thinks of a patch of stars that he’d never seen before--but the thought leaves him as a more pertinent one comes to mind. 

“There was a meteor shower last night?” Cullen asks, his voice rasping badly enough that Dorian refills the water glass and lets Cullen drink from it.

The Inquisitor nods, carefully reserved but interest piqued by Cullen’s asking.

“In--” Cullen stumbles over the words, still somehow unable to recount his dreams in any but the vaguest detail, “In my dream, there was a meteor shower as well,” he manages.

The Inquisitor frowns deeply, while Solas remains unruffled and Dorian blusters around trying to hide his worry. They leave him, one by one: Solas promises to research more and commune with Fade spirits who might know what stalks Cullen’s dreams, the Inquisitor having to attend another War Table meeting and assuring him things will be fine, and Dorian, who sits with him for a while and tries--obviously and desperately, to Cullen’s eyes, although he is not so unkind as to mention it--to reassure himself as well as Cullen.

Eventually Cullen sleeps again, and when he does he dreams. 

He wakes on the stone table again, and again the world of his dream has subtly changed. For the first time, Cullen is not nude save for the lion pelt. He wears a long chiton, and the lion pelt is secured around his shoulders with pins; the fur seeming a gilded silver in the light of the half moon. Away from him, on the table, there is a great jug of wine and a small lamp. 

The lamp is lit, flame flickering in the soft breeze, with a delicate gold filigree handle shaped around the fine glass reservoir of oil. The jug of wine is almost full; painted with a scene Cullen doesn’t recognize, fine pottery but undoubtedly heavy. Cullen takes the wine jug into his arms first, and it is heavy, weighing where he balances it against his hip and braces the handles against his arm. With his free hand he takes the lamp.

Turning away from the table, the glow of the lamp surrounding him and yet making the night beyond his circle of light darker still, Cullen sees a path. Suddenly, he remembers: the Maker is waiting for him. The thought makes him dizzy; breathless with the memory of hands being drawn down the lines of his body, of light and heat and pleasure. He shakes, nearly dropping the wine jug, before he firms his grip on it and starts along the path. 

Traveling along the path is easy at first. Cullen is barefoot and the hem of his chiton shifts against his ankles as he walks, trailing slightly on the ground behind him. The ground is soft dirt, and with the lamp held slightly aloft he can see the trail of the path as it leads him along the lake shore. Soon, though, Cullen is led into the woods, and the moonlight is blotted out by the shading of the branches overhead. He walks carefully, there are twigs littering the ground and the path is rutted and uneven in places, but Cullen continues.

Eventually the path begins to climb, curving around rocks and leading Cullen higher into mountains he can only now see; illuminated by moonlight and the glow of the lamp. It is difficult to climb while carrying the wine jug, and Cullen has to stop because he fears spilling the wine several times. The ground is rough under his feet, dirt giving way to stone, and as he walks he feels the jagged edges of stone snag the hem of his chiton as they scrape his feet. Even as the trees thin out around him the moonlight remains weak, and Cullen tries to lift the lamp higher to see ahead of him only to step finally beyond the trees and be buffeted by a gust of wind, making the flame sputter and nearly go out. Cullen pulls the lamp close to his body to shield the flame, and can barely see ahead of him. He walks.

Though it only seems he started out a little while ago, Cullen’s body aches as though he’s been walking for days; the wine jug growing heavier with every step, his hand clutching the handle of the lamp hard enough to hurt. The path leads deep into the mountains, steep and hemmed in by stone on both sides. Cullen’s feet are bleeding, and for a few moments he thinks of how easy it would be to throw down the wine jug and relieve himself of the weight. He can imagine dropping it; imagine the fine glass shattering; imagine the painted images becoming cracked and distorted; imagine the red flood of wine that would wash the stone, splashing onto his chiton and over his feet. 

He can’t bring himself to do it though, the thought of the Maker coming persistently to the forefront of his mind. The Maker, waiting for him, somewhere ahead. Tightening his grip on the wine jug and lifting the lamp as high as he can in the wind gusting off the sheer rock around him, Cullen continues to walk. Each step blurs into the last, and Cullen’s eyes focus more and more on the small flame of his lamp rather than the path ahead of him. He begins to shake, the wine sloshing dangerously but not spilling as Cullen carefully steadies the jug. 

Cullen finally reaches a lee in the mountain, stones and cliff-faces making a steep and narrow valley only a few paces from side to side. As he steps carefully into the shelter of the rock, the world seems to brighten. The flame of his lamp steadies and the circle of light it casts around him widens; the moon and stars--dim as he’d walked--sparkle in the sky. There is another table before him--carved wood rather than stone--and along side it sits a chaise, low and plushly upholstered, with cushions strewn over it. 

The last few steps to reach the table are agony, pain lancing through Cullen’s feet and up his legs. He sets the lamp down, and shifts to finally set down the wine jug--one final step--before his knees give and Cullen falls. For a few moments, terrible agonizing moments, Cullen hangs, clutching the jug desperately and knowing in some deep and intimate way that he’s failed at a task much greater than simply carrying a jug of wine. The Maker is there, though, the shape of him misting into being from the lamplight and starlight and moonlight, and he tugs Cullen and the wine jug into his grasp. Gently, he extricates the wine jug from Cullen’s grip on it, and sets it down on the table before sweeping Cullen up and carrying him to the chaise. 

Cullen feels faint, distant from his body even as he feels the Maker’s touch. Being off his feet hurts nearly as much as being on them, and he can’t help but hang on to the Maker’s arms even as he’s seated and the Maker draws away from him. The Maker takes his hands, though, and kisses them; kneeling so their faces are close. 

“ _Beloved_ ,” the Maker says, “ _You’ve been very ill,”_ Cullen doesn’t understand the words as the Maker says them, at first, but slowly he finds himself nodding, even as confusion settles into his thoughts. “ _It was my fault,”_ the Maker continues, “ _the price of our union falls solely on you, you carry our child and all the burdens that follow_ ,” he smiles at Cullen then, as perfect and bright as the dawn, “ _but you are strong, and have endured much_. _This is why you were chosen_.” 

Understanding blooms ugly in Cullen’s mind, that all he had suffered and endured was the only reason he was here now; that he couldn’t be broken because he already had broken, long ago. The Maker frowns shakes his head, taking Cullen’s face in his hands, “ _No. Not that. Never that. You are mine, and precious to me, for all that you are.”  
_

Cullen has never expected to hear these words, but he has hoped, fervently, that someday they might be spoken to him. He smiles, shakily, at the Maker, and the smile the Maker gives him in return is luminous. The lamp on the table burns twice as brightly, and Cullen watches as the Maker stands and turns to the table. There are things on it now that Cullen hadn’t seen or hadn’t noticed before, and the Maker takes up a small jar and a bowl and some folded cloth before returning. He kneels before Cullen again, and carefully inspects the ruin of Cullen’s feet. While walking Cullen had felt the scrapes and cuts, but seeing them bloody in the lamplight makes them throb with pain, and he imagines the trail of red footprints that must have followed him up the mountain.

The Maker tends the wounds carefully--rinsing and salving and wrapping them--while Cullen clenches his hands into fists on his thighs and stifles pained hisses. As soon as they’re tended, the pain drops away, out of reach and beyond thought, sudden enough to make Cullen dizzy again and to lose track of what the Maker is doing; he has to breathe deeply through his nose, and the cool air does little to clear the fog from his head. He focuses on the wine jug, the Maker standing just beside it. A glass has come from somewhere, and the Maker dips it into the jug, filling it, before returning again to Cullen, sitting beside him on the chaise. He offers the cup to Cullen, and Cullen clasps his hands around the Maker’s and leans forward and drinks from it.

The wine is strong and heady, making Cullen sit back and gasp, a drop of wine spilling from the corner of his mouth and trailing down his jaw and along his neck. The Maker’s eyes are bright as he watches Cullen, intense enough to make him blush even if he couldn’t feel the Maker’s desire curling around him. Cullen doesn’t know what happens to the cup, but between one moment and the next the Maker has drawn Cullen close to him and sealed his mouth over the drop of wine on his neck, following its trail to Cullen’s mouth. Cullen can’t help but go boneless in the Maker’s arms, leaning into his kiss and into his hands and his warmth. The Maker is still kissing Cullen as he tugs the pin holding the lion pelt around Cullen’s shoulders loose and tosses it away, doing the same to the brooches that secure the fabric of Cullen’s chiton until only the press of the Maker’s body is keeping the cloth from falling away. 

Cullen almost feels like a maiden as he reflexively clutches at the fabric swathed around him, and he blushes even more deeply as the Maker gives him a look somehow bright and dark with promise and then tugs the fabric out of reach and crowds him back onto the chaise; leaning in to kiss Cullen as he presses his thighs apart with his weight. There is nothing Cullen can do but arch against the Maker; offering himself--just as he’s done every night the Maker has come to him--and being taken in turn. The Maker holds himself above Cullen; slipping an arm around his waist to arch Cullen’s back even further and press them even closed together with each thrust and mouthing at his neck and jaw on the places the wine spilled. 

He can do nothing but cling to the Maker and his warmth, pleasure burning through him, and Cullen clings even more desperately when he feels a sudden shock of cold that knocks the breath from his lungs. The Maker growls above him, possessiveness suddenly banding around Cullen like hot iron, and the scorching heat of it is enough to send Cullen tumbling over the end, the Maker holding him hard enough to bruise as he finishes as well; a fire lit in Cullen that makes him whimper, when for the first time he isn’t driven into waking.

The Maker holds him close; the lines of their bodies flush, Cullen’s thighs locked around the Maker’s hips, the Maker’s arms crushing Cullen to his chest, and when the cold jolts down Cullen’s spine a second time the Maker can only look at him sadly and slowly loosen his hold. Cullen reaches after the Maker--and his warmth--as the chill seeps into him, but the Maker shushes him, and kisses him softly. The freezing shock comes a third time, and Cullen is torn away from the dream.

He wakes, gasping, wrapped in a sheet in a bath of ice. There are strong hands holding his thrashing body into the water, and his vision is blurred. Cullen distantly hears a clamor of voices; raised and echoing around the room. Blinking the water out of his eyes, Cullen finds himself staring up into the Iron Bull’s deeply frowning face. 

Bull lifts him out of the ice bath as soon as Cullen wakes. Cullen can see that he’s been removed from his room in the tower and brought to the healers. Around him they move quickly at what tasks they’re undertaking, directing Bull to help him stand on shaky legs and efficiently scrubbing him dry before having Bull lift him again and deposit him on a bed. Cullen is wrapped in blankets and made to drink broth and tea and herbal remedies, but the healers seem relieved, and as soon as he is left relatively to himself Cullen asks the Iron Bull what happened. 

What he hears is less than comforting; a fever, delirium, some force of magic welling from within him that made healing magic nearly impossible to use. The Inquisitor had gotten Bull to carry Cullen to the healers, three days ago, and this was the first time the fever had seemingly broken for any meaningful amount of time since then. 

Cullen is very tired, but there’s still more noise than the din of the healer’s ward explains, and he presses Bull for more details. Skyhold had dreamed while Cullen fevered; abstract signs that Solas refused to attempt to interpret and that had brought Mother Giselle to the Inquisitor’s door after the first night claiming to have had a vision from the Maker. Now, Cullen can clearly make out the raised voices of the Inquisitor and Mother Giselle arguing over some so-called chosen one. The Iron Bull makes himself comfortable by Cullen’s bedside, but every so often he glances towards the door, and Cullen gets the idea that Bull has been asked to stand by for more than just the ease with which he can lift Cullen. He drinks the broth that’s pressed on him by a passing healer, and lies back on the ward bed. 

Despite his tiredness, Cullen is clearheaded, and as the voices of the Inquisitor and Mother Giselle fade away and the Iron Bull sits by his bedside watchfully but without further comment, he is left with time to think. 

Chosen, the Maker had said. A child. Cullen feels the phantom ache of pain stabbing through his feet and up his legs and wonders what further price he’ll have to pay. He doesn’t feel fear, though; the Maker’s love having rooted itself in Cullen’s very soul, and Cullen himself having nurtured it into growth. He flexes his feet under the blankets and feels a tightness in the skin on the soles; scars, he knows without looking. Cullen knows he should tell the Inquisitor, even if he’s sure she’ll think he’s gone mad, but instead he takes the mug of herbal tea the healer gives him and sips it until tiredness steals over him again and he can sleep.

When Cullen wakes into his dream, it is only because the scent of smoke and flowers has become too strong for him to ignore. Slowly opening his eyes, he finds himself in a cave, tucked carefully into a thick nest of blankets and pillows. There are a few candles melted into crevices in the walls, but most of the light comes from the radiance of the Maker, who lies beside him under the blankets. The Maker is also providing most of the warmth, as far as Cullen can tell, and he scoots closer to him under the blankets to be as near as possible.

The Maker smiles crookedly and welcomes Cullen closer, arranging blankets and curling around him possessively. Cullen sighs out a breath of relief and rests easily. Until the Maker was beside him, he hadn’t realized how cold he still felt, how exhausted. He wants warmth but he wants the Maker too, and his voice breaks and his words stumble as he tries to explain this to the Maker while the Maker smiles more and tuts at him about resting and leans closer yet to steal kisses from Cullen’s lips. 

The Maker’s hands find Cullen’s skin under the blankets and leave scorching trails where they touch, making Cullen shudder and groan and arch into the Maker’s touch. They lay flush against each other, but despite the heat pouring off the Maker’s form Cullen still feels slightly chilled. He needs more warmth but he can’t find the words, the Maker is so near every sound Cullen tries to make becomes a breathy moan. The Maker _knows_ , thought, somehow plucking the thoughts from Cullen’s mind--a fervent wish for warmth; burning heat--and giving Cullen his desire. 

It’s slow at first, the Maker holds Cullen to his chest and the light and heat that radiate from him grow stronger, but then something in his form changes. The Maker holds Cullen as his skin shifts and roughens; his limbs lengthening; his face stretching; the light and heat pouring off of him in nigh unbearable waves. Cullen blinks, a moment to clear his eyes, and finds himself entwined with a dragon. 

He knows it is the Maker still; he knows he is perfectly safe; Cullen shudders once, and then one of the Maker’s great eyes catch his and Cullen finds himself clinging closer. The Maker breathes out a great gust of smoke, and suddenly the air is stifling; choking with the scent of flowers and hot enough to make Cullen tear at the blankets to be free of them. He is still pressed partially beneath the Maker’s weight, though, and Cullen finds that he’s struggled free of the blankets only to bare his skin against the Maker’s burning scales. 

The heat makes Cullen sigh, warming him so deeply that the chill of his infirmity seems finally banished. The Maker shifts slightly, and Cullen realizes he is held in the dragon’s embrace the same way the Maker held him as a man. They are close, and the Maker has limited the stature of this form so they might remain that way, and Cullen is glad for it. The emotion startles Cullen when he understands it, just as he is startled to feel his desire for the Maker undimmed by his changed form. 

Cullen breathes in the smoke of the Maker’s breath and tastes flowers, and squirms gently in the Maker’s hold on him; pressing against the Maker’s heated scales and shifting his legs where they’re caught against the Maker’s own. The Maker chuckles, a thundering rumble that sends more smoke gusting over Cullen and into his lungs. He feels lightheaded now, but the Maker shifts and Cullen’s thighs fall apart to bracket all of the Maker’s great hips that slide between them. The Maker arches over Cullen, strong fore-legs supporting him as he bends his head to nip playfully at Cullen’s neck and shoulders. 

The Maker breathes against Cullen’s skin as though he can taste it, and the thought that shimmers through the smoke between them is of a dragon crouched protectively over treasure. Cullen’s fingers catch against the Maker’s scales as the Maker presses oh-so-carefully into him; hot and scorching. It is almost too much, Cullen feels too complete; the Maker’s weight surrounds him and bears down on him and drives him relentlessly to pleasure. 

There is nothing for Cullen but to come, sobbing, burning from the inside as the Maker spills into him and roars above him. He feels on fire, and the core of the flame rests low in his belly; the child. Sweat has plastered stray curls of hair to Cullen’s face, and when the Maker’s fingers--human again, and perfect and unbearably handsome--smooth them away Cullen startles. The Maker smiles down at him, and kisses him, and soothes the stinging marks his own dragon’s teeth left on Cullen’s skin. When he has coaxed Cullen under the blankets once more and laid down beside him, the Maker presses his hand to the very place Cullen can feel their child within himself; settled for now like a banked flame, but growing brighter and more fierce.

For a moment, Cullen understands that he is the kindling that feeds the flame, but the Maker turns his head for a kiss and whispers soft words to Cullen, and the knowledge leaves him.

When Cullen wakes in his bed in the ward, the Iron Bull is gone from his bedside, and the light through the window is the pale glow of a coming dawn. Ringing through his head with the memory of heat and weight and smoke and flowers, the Maker’s voice says to him, “That comes later, dearest, rest for now.”

He doesn’t understand what he is waiting for, but Cullen shifts a hand to lay protectively over the point of the Maker’s fire that he carries within him, and watches the sun rise.


End file.
